


Holly On Your Own Front Door

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Exchange, Christmas tree shopping, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Moving In Together, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Canon, and a cat!, this may be the fluffiest thing i have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28068567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: After three years on separate teams, Andrew and Neil finally move in together a few weeks before Christmas.  A trip to a Christmas tree farm results in an unexpected surprise.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 29
Kudos: 309
Collections: AFTG Exchange





	Holly On Your Own Front Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovefulls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovefulls/gifts).



> This is my winter exchange gift for @invidiosas on Tumblr! They requested a fluffy seasonal creation, and I hope this satisfies. Thank you as always to tntwme for the beta, and also thank you to foxsoulcourt for helping me commit to this idea and likearecord for brainstorming cat names. And thank you to leahlisabeth for being an amazing mod!!! (Title is from 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas'.)

The sky outside the window was streaked with just the barest whispers of rose and gray when Andrew blinked awake far too early. The tip of his nose was cold, but the rest of him was bordering on uncomfortably warm, thanks to the human furnace that was octopussed around him. He wondered when Neil had managed to grow so many extra limbs, and where he stored them when they weren’t sleeping. Or if Neil was secretly a werewolf. Might explain how he had survived all these years.

This was still new, having Neil in his bed, every single morning. Still new; still something he would burn the world to keep. After three years of stolen moments, stolen weeks; three years of Skyping and late night phone calls just to hear that voice, just to remind himself that this was real.

Neil stirred, his arm tightening reflexively around Andrew, and he let out a tiny little sigh like a contented cat. Fuck. Who the fuck gave him the right to do...that? Cuteness was illegal, or should be, for the likes of them. Andrew had long stopped expecting the end of the world to come crashing through their doors, but he had never quite trusted innocence. He closed his eyes, wondering if it would all be dissipated into smoke when he next opened them.

When he woke again, there was a pale light streaming through the windows, its delicate fingers tracing along Neil’s forehead, his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, the curve of his lips as he smiled. “Morning,” Neil whispered, his voice husky and soft as it was every morning.

Andrew’s words hadn’t appeared yet, so he rolled into Neil, tucking his face against his neck and letting Neil’s fingers find their way into his hair. He lay that way for a while, breathing in Neil’s scent. He never understood the descriptions of people’s scents in books. They were always oddly precise, like orange blossoms and the rainforest and the underside of an ocean wave. Neil just smelled like person. Warm and clean and a little musky. It wasn’t romantic, but Andrew didn’t give a shit. It was real.

Eventually his bladder got the best of him and he sat up, blinking at the mess they had made of the bedroom. There was a Laundry Situation developing that would need to be dealt with before they found themselves accidentally smothered by dirty clothes. But first, the errand.

Neil was still sipping at the dregs of his coffee, his hair in spectacular disarray, when Andrew tossed his keys at him.

“Yes?” Neil said, eyebrows shooting up.

“We’re going shopping.”

“Now?” But Neil was already dumping his cereal bowl in the sink. He re-emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later looking passably like an adult member of society and trailed Andrew out of their little house to where the cars sat. The Mas might be old, but Andrew still wasn’t putting a Christmas tree on the roof of it. He plucked Neil’s keys out of his pocket and went around to the driver’s side of the very serviceable, very boring, very gray Honda he had saddled them with.

A thin drizzle was glazing the roads as they drove through town. Neil was quiet, contentedly looking out the windows as the world passed by in a blur of color. Andrew had to stop himself from constantly reaching out his hand to touch him. There wasn’t a stopwatch on them anymore.

It wasn’t until they drove past the mall that Neil seemed to come out of his reverie. “Uh, Andrew?”

“Uh, Neil?”

“Did you—” Neil faltered as the mall disappeared through the rear view windows. “Okay.”

The Christmas tree farm was about a mile further down the road. Neil laughed when Andrew turned into the dirt lot. “Seriously?”

Andrew ignored him and pulled into an open spot. The lot was already almost full, with children and couples swarming around like insects through row after row of trees of all shapes and sizes. Neil followed him through the mud, hood on his jacket shadowing his face, watching the chaos around them with gentle bemusement. They passed through row upon row of trees, all bundled up tightly. Andrew ran his fingers along the branches as he walked past, feeling the texture of the needles. He didn’t care so much what the tree looked like as that he wouldn’t end up with a thousand tiny stab wounds from putting the fucking lights on.

They meandered down to the back of the lot, where the sad trees sat under the “25% off” sign. For some reason Neil was drawn immediately to a thin, crooked tree little taller than he was. Andrew sighed as Neil started petting the tree, his expression shifting into that thing it did when he wanted to do something stupid.

“Andrew.”

Something moved. It was just a flicker in the corner of Andrew’s eye; he turned to track it, but there was nothing. He stared over at the nearby empty flatbed truck for a long moment, before turning back to Neil. “No.”

“You have to feel it before you say no. It’s so soft!”

Another flicker. This time Neil seemed to see it too; he abandoned his pathetic tree and came to stand next to Andrew, peering into the shadows under the truck. “What the fuck was that?” he murmured.

Andrew crept closer to the truck, crouching down a few feet away. At first, nothing; but as Neil’s feet came to join him, there was a glimmer in the dark. Eyes. Andrew blinked, and the shadows around the eyes mutated into a cat.

“Oh,” Neil whispered, kneeling on the wet ground next to him. “Is it hurt?”

It had been over a decade since Andrew had petted a cat. A couple of his foster homes had had them, and at first it had been hard to keep still enough to make friends with them, but eventually he had learned. He sat back on his heels and made a little chirping sound at the cat. It’s huge eyes fixed on him, but it didn’t move.

“Give me your jerky,” he muttered, holding out a hand to Neil.

“In public? We could get in trouble for that,” Neil quipped, before rummaging around in his pockets and pulling out a folding knife, two buttons, a quarter, and finally a packet of beef jerky. “How did you know I had this?”

“I met you prior to yesterday.”

“Asshole,” Neil said, sounding fond.

Andrew broke off a thumbnail-sized piece of jerky and tossed it in the direction of the cat. It didn’t move for a long moment, and then he could see its whiskers twitching, and it crept forward to snag the jerky before retreating to gulp it down. He tossed another piece, and another. The drizzle was getting heavier, and he could feel it matting down his hair, running in rivulets down his neck, but still he didn’t move. Step by cautious, slow step, the cat came closer.

Eventually it reached the edge of the truck bed’s shelter and stopped there. It looked like a sentient dust bunny had gotten dunked in a bathtub. Its long coat was some sort of indeterminate color, neither gray or brown; out of its round face stared two enormous sky-blue eyes.

Andrew barely dared to breathe. He drew out one more piece of jerky and held it out, his cultivated patience keeping him still as the waterlogged creature stared at the jerky, then up at his face. With a glance at Neil, the cat slunk out and snatched the jerky from Andrew’s fingers, careful not to brush his skin. But it didn’t run back under the truck. It sniffed Andrew carefully, then bumped its hard little head against his palm. Something tugged at the corners of his lips, and when he looked at Neil he saw an awed smile. Andrew curved his fingers, scratching gently under the cat’s chin, and he felt the vibration as it started to purr.

Well. They may have come here for a tree, but he would be damned if he wasn’t leaving with a cat.

“What do you do with a cat?” Neil asked, watching the bedraggled mop rub it’s cheek on Andrew’s knuckles.

“I hear they’re delicious served over fettuccine,” Andrew said, “with a light lemon cream sauce.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Neil laughed under his breath. “But seriously.”

“It’s not a bomb, Neil. It’s a pet. You feed it, play with it, take it to the vet. Let it ruin all your furniture. Post pictures of it online doing stupid shit. Whatever.”

Neil watched Andrew petting the cat for a minute before letting out a long-suffering sigh. “We’re getting a cat, aren’t we.” Andrew hummed. “Well if you get the cat, I get my little tree.”

“Deal.”

The cat startled when Neil got to his feet, scurrying back under the flatbed, but it only took a second before it reappeared. “Can I pick you up?” Andrew asked it. It stared up at him, giving one long blink. “Is that a yes?”

Evidently it was. Telegraphing every move, he gently scooped the soggy cat into his arms, tucking it inside his coat. His shirt soaked through immediately, and he made a face at the wet feeling crawling along his torso as he got to his feet. The cat was trembling, from fear or cold he didn’t know, but though he could feel its claws hooking through his clothes it didn’t seem inclined to hurt him.

Neil grabbed the stupid tree, hefting it over his shoulder and once again falling in behind Andrew as they made their way back towards the parking lot. “Let me do the talking,” he suggested as they neared the checkout.

As if Andrew would ever volunteer otherwise.

“Excuse me,” Neil said, doing that thing where he looked up underneath his eyelashes as though he were shy. Andrew watched the jaded Christmas tree sales woman visibly melt.

“Yeah, sugar?” she asked.

“We saw a cat? Back under the truck? And I was wondering—”

“Oh, sugar, that poor baby! It was here when we opened up this year, Lord knows where it came from. Too scared to let us touch it. We’ve been puttin’ food out for it and stuff, but we haven’t been able to get near it.”

Neil nodded, giving the sweet smile that would wheedle millionaires out of their fortune and unsuspecting tree salespeople of their cats. “Do you think it has a home?”

“I doubt it, someone probably dumped it out here when they didn’t want it anymore. Happens sometimes.”

“How awful,” Neil said, sounding properly horrified. “Do you think it would be okay if we took it home? I can’t bear the thought of it spending Christmas out here all alone.” Andrew petted the hidden cat, wondering how many people his partner had charmed over his years on the run. Hundreds. Thousands. Not for the first time, Andrew thought it was a good thing Neil had no interest in going into politics.

“It’s all yours, sugar,” the woman said. “I’ll even throw in that tree you’ve got there. A little thank you to you and your friend here for being so kind.”

Neil gave a token protest, but was quickly shushed. He assured the woman the cat was secure, and with an impish grin at Andrew hoisted his pathetic free tree and led the way back to the car.

Andrew huddled with the cat in the passenger seat while Neil tied the tree into place with a coil of rope he managed to procure out of nowhere. And then they were on the road again, the soundtrack a chorus of increasingly frantic yowls emanating from inside Andrew’s coat. The next thing he knew, Neil was hitting the blinker and carefully pulling into a parking lot.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re taking it to the vet. It probably has fleas or something. I don’t want to get the plague.”

“That’s rat fleas, not cat fleas. And it doesn’t have fleas. If it has fleas I’m going to burn my clothes. And then your car.”

It had fleas. And tapeworms. And an upper respiratory infection, reported the vet, Dr. Valentine according to her nametag. The cat was a couple of years old, female, and had a scar on her belly that meant she was likely spayed already. But no microchip.

Neil paced the tiny exam room while the assistant Rachel took the cat to do some blood tests and give her some shots. “What are we going to name her?” he asked, playing with the tools that were laid out on the counter.

“Bing Clawsby,” Andrew answered.

Neil snorted. “We’re not naming her Bing Clawsby, you can’t name a cat that, it’s ridiculous.”

“It’s Christmas.”

“What about Mittens?”

“Absolutely fucking not. She’s not a children’s book character. Janelle Meownae.”

Neil snort-laughed. “No. Nicky would like that way too much.” He had a point. “Fluffy.”

“I will leave you if you name her that.”

“You won’t. You like me.”

“I won’t,” Andrew agreed. “But I’ll consider it seriously.”

Neil’s laughter was interrupted by the door swinging open and the assistant reappearing holding an enormous mound of fur in grays and creams and whites, like a sepia photo of a rainbow. Said mound was deposited on the exam room table, where she glared balefully at the assistant before shaking the indignity off her paw and cleaning it. “Uh,” said Neil.

The assistant grinned. “Behold your new cat!” she said, gesturing like a game show assistant. “Our groomer saw her and couldn’t let her stay like that, she loves Ragdolls. So she’s been bathed and blow dried and her nails were trimmed.”

“Ragdolls?” Neil asked, offering a finger for the cat to sniff.

“Yeah. That’s what she is, or at least part.” The assistant rattled off some more information, but Andrew wasn’t listening. He was too busy watching Neil and the cat stare at each other. Their eyes were the same color. Andrew needed a drink.

“Oh, did you guys settle on a name? I need something for the rabies certificate.”

“Socks,” Neil said.

“No.” Both the assistant and Neil looked at Andrew. “How many animals named Socks do you have here?” he asked, waving at the computer.

The assistant typed something in, scanning the result. “Thirty two.”

“Smokey?” Neil offered.

Her fingernails tapped along the keyboard. “Twenty eight.”

Andrew stared pointedly at Neil, who sighed. “Fine, okay, I see your point.”

The assistant looked between them. “I can just leave it as ‘Undecided’ for now, if you want.”

Which is how they found themselves pulling into a Target with a cat legally named Undecided jammed into a new carrier. Andrew wondered if that was a metaphor.

“Give me ten minutes,” Neil said. Andrew scoffed but didn’t stop him when he disappeared into the holiday crowd. He spent the time letting the cat sniff him, memorizing the tickle of her whiskers against his wrist, the cottony softness of her fur under his fingertips. Even as five minutes stretched into ten, fifteen, her eyes stayed fixed on him with wary vigilance and her muscles never lost their rigidity.

“What’s your story?” he asked her. She blinked at the sound of his voice, and he found himself talking. He told her about new homes, new chances. About Nicky and Aaron. About the crowded warmth of the dorms where he could never fully drop his guard and the bleak safety of an empty apartment. About a tiny new house and a tiny new yard that was warmer than all the rest even in winter, even with no memories, even with scarcely any furniture, because it was _theirs._ His and Neil’s.

“And now it’s yours, if you want it,” he murmured, and that was when he realized she had started to purr.

The pair of them jumped when the back door opened, and he closed the carrier before the cat could make a break for it. A panting Neil shoved enormous bag after enormous bag into the car, then flopped, damp with sweat or rain or both, into the front seat. “Never again.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “What.”

“I am never again going to Target in December, that was the worst experience of my life.”

“You have literally been tortured.”

“I said what I said.” Neil brushed his sweaty hair off his forehead and twisted the key in the ignition. “Never. Again.”

Andrew huffed and poked his fingers in through the front grate of the cat carrier. “Your new father is a drama queen,” he told her seriously.

“As if you can talk.”

It took four trips to get everything in the house. They followed Rachel the vet assistant’s advice and set up the litter box, then closed the cat in the bathroom with that while they put up the tree. There was a moderate amount of cursing, then considerably more cursing, then Neil walking away for ten minutes to drink some tea, then even more cursing before they finally had the tree aligned as straight as possible.

Andrew sat on the couch, letting the prickling leave his skin while Neil unpacked his spoils. In addition to cat food, cat bowls, cat toys, a cat bed, a scratching post, a second litter box, and more cat toys, there were strings and strings of white fairy lights and a random assortment of ornaments, all of them animals. Andrew picked the fox one off the floor and dangled it in front of Neil’s face. “Seriously?”

Neil tugged it from his grip with a grin, hanging it from one of the highest branches of the undersized tree. “You make me get a tree, you deal with the consequences.”

Andrew snaked a hand out to grab the front of Neil’s sweatshirt, dragging him in for a kiss, then another, and another. Neil smiled against his lips, and Andrew was about to make him pay for that when he heard a rustle and pulled back. A shadowy pile of fluff skirted the wall and disappeared under the tree, and he huffed and pointed. “Great job closing the bathroom door.”

Neil settled half in his lap to watch the cat skulk around in a valiant attempt at invisibility for a while, until his stomach rumbled and Andrew kicked him off so they could eat lunch. The afternoon passed in a flurry of food and fairy lights and turning around to find the cat in unexpected places. By the time the sky was darkening out the windows, Neil was in a pitched battle with her over climbing the tree.

“I give up,” he said, and there was a little amused crease at the side of his mouth as he stared at the cat peering out between the branches, framed by a reindeer and a polar bear. Andrew wanted to kiss that little wrinkle, so he did, and Neil made a pleased humming sound.

Andrew snagged a cookie from the box Nicky had sent and leaned back, pulling Neil to his side. “Larry Krameow.”

“She’s a girl.”

“She’s a cat, Neil, she has no gender identity.”

Neil shook his head, and that crease was deeper, and Andrew poked it. He laughed and pulled away. “Buttons.”

“Are you five?” Andrew ran through a list of names in his head to see what could be made into a pun. “Meowsha P. Johnson. Edie Windspurr.”

“If we’re going to do something like that, it needs to have a normal nickname. If she escapes I’m not putting up signs around the neighborhood for ‘Meowsha.’”

“Harvey.”

“Why Harvey?”

“Harvey Milk. She’s a cat, isn’t she?”

Neil threw his head back and laughed. They argued back and forth while the undecided cat disappeared into the kitchen, and then Andrew put on a movie, and they settled in to watch it. Neil was laughing in all the right spots, but Andrew found himself staring at the lights, the thousand captive stars gleaming in a corner of their living room. New constellations danced across the ceiling and the walls, and Andrew’s own personal sun was tucked into his side, and the cat was orbiting around them both, finding her own place in this new little solar system of theirs.

“Merry Christmas,” Neil said suddenly, brushing a kiss against Andrew’s pulse point.

“It’s not Christmas yet.”

Neil shrugged, watching the pathetic little tree shake as the cat climbed up it again. “I don’t know, I’ve never quite understood the whole thing. We didn’t celebrate when I was a kid, obviously, so I’m kind of making it up as I go along. It just seems like a time to find the best bits in the cold and the dark and hold on to that, you know?”

Andrew tightened his arm around Neil, and he rested his head on Andrew’s shoulder. “So this is Christmas to me. And I think it is for Harvey, too.”

His words were punctuated by a thud as the cat—Harvey—jumped out of the tree and made her way over to the couch. A blink, and she had vaulted onto Andrew’s lap, another ember of warmth as sleet slashed against the windows. He reached out a careful hand, and it sunk into her endless fur until he could feel the vibrations of her purring through his palm, and he realized that this was his reality, this was his life, this was his choice.

So he closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to Neil’s hair, and held on as hard as he could to this brightness that lit up his dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fluff-dialed-up-to-an-eleven! I certainly had fun writing it, I always love writing Andrew farther along in his recovery. I've mentioned before my anxiety re: replying to comments, but I cherish each and every one. You can always hit me up [on Tumblr](https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com) any time!


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